“Maybe the lesson is don’t invade neighbors who are much stronger than they appear.”
Likewise don’t provoke countries that still take their military seriously.
Hardly borne out by said military's performance. The Russians love to BS about their military might. Looks to me like they believed their own BS.
And what provocation? You mean throwing out Putin's puppet Yanukovych? No one was being killed in Donbas until Putin sent his gangsters in supported by the Russian army.